The present invention relates, generally, to the field of computing, and more particularly to the field of information retrieval.
Information retrieval (IR) concerns fetching information resources from a data repository in response to a query. Information to be retrieved may take many forms, such as a document, information within the document, metadata that describes data, texts, images, or sounds. With the advent of computer networks, cloud computing, and the internet, information retrieval has become a crucial component of business and of personal life. Many universities and public libraries use IR systems to access books, journals, and other documents; businesses and museums use IR systems to access inventory, and individuals use IR systems to access the internet, to name but a few examples. Most IR systems assign a score to each object in the database to be searched, based on how well each object matches the query, and thereby ranks the objects by relevance. The top rankings are then shown to the user, and this process may be iterated if the user chooses to refine the query.